intended to defend the action of the court that destroyed so many innocent lives, but no man can read it without being thoroughly convinced that the decision of the court was both illogical and cruel.  There is nothing in this country to equal it, except it be the burning of the witches at Salem.  But in stalwart old England the Popish Plot in 1679, started by Titus Oates, is the only occurrence in human history that is so faithfully reproduced by the Negro plot.  Certainly history repeats itself.  Sixty-two years of history stretch between the events.  One tragedy is enacted in the metropolis of the Old World, the other in the metropolis of the New World.  One was instigated by a perjurer and a heretic, the other by an indentured servant, in all probability from a convict ship.  The one was suggested by the hatred of the Catholics, and the other by hatred of the Negro.  And in both cases the evidence that convicted and condemned innocent men and women was wrung from the lying lips of doubtful characters by an overwrought zeal on the part of the legal authorities.

Titus Oates, who claimed to have discovered the “Popish Plot,” was a man of the most execrable character.  He was the son of an Anabaptist, took orders in the Church, and had been settled in a small living by the Duke of Norfolk.  Indicted for perjury, he effected an escape in a marvellous manner.  While a chaplain in the English navy he was convicted of practices not fit to be mentioned, and was dismissed from the service.  He next sought communion with the Church of Rome, and made his way into the Jesuit College of St. Omers.  After a brief residence among the students, he was deputed to perform a confidential mission to Spain, and, upon his return to St. Omers, was dismissed to the world on account of his habits, which were very distasteful to Catholics.  He boasted that he had only joined them to get their secrets.  Such a man as this started the cry of the Popish Plot, and threw all England into a state of consternation.  A chemist by the name of Tongue, on the 12th of August, 1678, had warned the king against a plot that was directed at his life, etc.  But the king did not attach any importance to the statement until Tongue referred to Titus Oates as his authority.  The latter proved himself a most arrant liar while on the stand:  but the people were in a credulous state of mind, and Oates became the hero of the hour;[242] and under his wicked influence many souls were hurried into eternity.  Read Hume’s account of the Popish Plot, and then follow the bloody narrative of the Negro plot of New York, and see how the one resembles the other.